


What Lies Beneath Your Sick Twisted Smile

by mildlySerendipitous (Irrisia)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: 6 A.M., Angst, Character Study, Fake Scripture, Not Quite A Kismesis Either, Not Quite Gen, Passive Protest, There's always angst in everything I write, Vague Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-29
Updated: 2012-07-29
Packaged: 2017-11-10 23:26:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/471902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irrisia/pseuds/mildlySerendipitous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Condesce, the Helmsman, and a battle fought with no weapons. The Helmsman will not let her win, but to engage in open warfare is to give her the victory.</p>
<p>He thinks he's found a way to win.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Lies Beneath Your Sick Twisted Smile

  


_You remember how it felt to hate her, her white teeth stark and sharp in an open grin as the Signless dies an undignified, agonising death. You remember how it felt when your loathing exploded, raging at the air around you, the trolls before you, the doom you knew none of you could escape. You remember despising her, your heart as black in that moment as her lips and hair and soul, as the Signless breaks and crumbles and you cannot bear the obscenity of it all._

_And you remember her smile of victory, as cold and black and sharp as any oceanic abyss she might call home, as she leant forward to look at you._

\--  
 _"Why then do we fear each other? Fear comes from lack of understanding, and so we fear each other because we do not understand each other. We do not understand each other because we do not understand ourselves. We do not understand ourselves because we are told, all our lives, the colour of our blood is the only thing worth knowing, and in doing so we neglect the heart, the mind, the soul."_  
\--

At first, fresh from being broken and brainwashed and installed, you cannot hate her. There simply isn't enough of you left to feel anything, let alone such a sustained and focussed emotion as hatred. But there is no victory in an enemy that does not fear and hate you, she tells you, and a cold war begins. She needles you with spiteful words, horrendous stories of atrocities she has committed in her long reign, shallow compliments and careless insults. She reads the transcripts of the trials of all your fellow rebels, watches the footage of their cullings, gleefully plays back audio files of her troops raiding safe houses and towns that had done nothing but shelter the Signless for a night, all from files stored in your memory banks. She stands in the control room, with the remnants of your flesh and blood, and she grins and laughs and caresses your face. Her mouth is set in a permanent smile, you notice, but it is a shark's grin of empty hunger and casual disregard. Slowly, surely, your mind returns and you remember being the Ψiioniic, and she smirks in anticipation.

But you have given her the victory once, and you will not do so again. You remember the smile, and you refuse to rise to the bait. When she takes delight in the death of someone you knew, you hold a silent memorial service in your thoughts; for those you didn't know, you silently commend them for bravery. You remember remnants of conversations, whispers, sermons. You remember the Signless, short and furious and with enough pity for the whole of trollkind; the Disciple, cheerful and devoted and fiercely courageous; the Dolorosa, calming and caring and sensible. You follow every order to the letter, efficiently and silently, and though darkness boils in your veins (or what passes for them now) you do not give her the satisfaction of seeing it.

\--  
 _"We are told that to feel is weakness, and so we hide it away. Why? Why should we not care for those around us? Why do we waste our lives like this?"_  
\--

At first, you amuse her; she laughs at your silence, delights in giving you nonsensical orders. But the hours and perigrees and sweeps pass, and your voice and your hatred remain locked within you. You are obedient, no more, no less, and as time passes you by, you can see her grow frustrated. She still smiles, but she laughs less, and sometimes the curve of her lips looks forced.

Your first victory is when she commands you that you must verbally acknowledge her orders. You are mute no longer, but she has been the first to crack and she knows it, and her smiles now are less frequent.

\--  
 _"No, look, the point is that a kismesis should drive you forwards, make you strive to do better, give you someone to measure yourself against. It's not meant to be a weight around your neck, a water-driven rotational wheat-grinding rock dragging you into the load gaper to wallow in the filth- yes, fine, watching my language, sorry Dolarosa- as I was saying, it's not meant to just be condescension and loathing. That's her way of doing it, but it's not right."_  
\--

She snarls more, the further you go and the longer you are out in space. She finds ways to punish you, to needle you, to make it nearly impossible for you to remain within your limits of exact compliance. Still you refuse to hate her, even though the pitch screams in your mind and demands release.

Your second victory is when you flawlessly carry out two nonsensical, near contradictory orders. She is sat on her throne, on the bridge of the ship, and her hands tighten slightly and her mouth almost straightens out completely.

\--  
 _"She leads you to fear each other so you do not understand how much you have in common! Set aside your blood, and see the similarities. She fears what you can do, because she does not understand what you can do, and so she seeks to distract you from what you could do! She convinces you to fear her, but what is she but another troll?"_  
\--

Once, she sits in your chamber with grubcorn, and watches the Sufferer die. She smirks, all the way through, and makes sharply barbed commentary, but it cannot touch you. Too many sweeps have gone by; even as you watch the Sufferer cry out, you feel nothing save pity for him. The pain and fear is the Ψiioniic's; you are the Helmsman, and you will not hate her. Afterwards, she flays strips of skin from your remnants, but she does not smile and though you scream, there is no emotion, only pain. She killed the Sufferer and the Ψiioniic, but the Signless lives on as long as the Helmsman remembers, and you will not hate.

Your third victory is as she leaves the chamber; she turns back to look at you, eyes narrowed, teeth hidden behind thin lips.

\--  
 _"You... you're in my dreams, sometimes. You're meant to be here with us, don't ever think you're not."_  
\--

Time passes, and you can see black hatred boil in her eyes, but you refuse to respond. You will not hate her. She keeps you alive, long after your time, and the Signless almost begins to fade in your memory; you remember piercing red eyes and ridiculous leggings and a voice hoarse from shouting in every village you walk through, but sometimes you forget the smaller details of how he sat, hunched over with the weight of his dreams; how his horns were a sore talking point sometimes; how much he smiled, when it was just the four of you and he was recalling his dreams for you.

Your final victory is as you speed her home. A sound rings in the back of your mind, and it's hard to think and you are slow to respond, but you still comply with her order even as it's killing you and she rages on the bridge, alone with the corpses of her crew, and you strain yourself to push the ship across the eons of space. She stamps and swears and shouts, and you can't understand what she wants hurts it all hurts this is the last time it will ever hurt, but you know this will be the first time you fail to comply with an order.

And as you die, you do not hate her. She is not worth your hate.

\--  
 _"They're not going to let me live, but you might be able to. When they take me, don't get caught. Find a way to survive, okay?"_  
\--

_They're waiting for you. The eyes you remember are gone, replaced with milky blankness, and they bear scars and death-wounds, but then the Disciple pounces on you, knocking you over, and the Signless offers you both a hand getting back up and calls you a moron for not getting the fuck out of there, and the Dolorosa lays a cold but comforting hand on your cheek and you're home._

_You don't pity her, left behind, with no-one to welcome her to death, but it comes fairly close, you think._

**Author's Note:**

> Ttile is part of a Breaking Benjamin song, "What Lies Beneath".
> 
> The Scriptures of the Signless are based on a number of half-remembered quotes, mostly "We fear that we don't understand".
> 
> Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures and all related characters are the work of Andrew Hussie.
> 
> Man it's 7.30 am and I am probably making no sense.


End file.
